Friday, February 23, 2007

Jimmy Carter: they still make heroes

David Seaton's News Links

Former President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter, is a very quiet, polite, gentleman of the old south. His own personal journey has been one of rigorous self-examination and self-criticism. He has transcended the racism that surrounded him in the rural Georgia where he grew up, as few men or women of his generation ever have.

Certainly if anyone has made a exemplary effort to live in harmony with, and according to, his deepest beliefs and system of values, it is Jimmy Carter.

In the context of America's contemporary power structure, former president Carter's denouncing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories as apartheid is nothing short of heroic. At 82 years old, after a lifetime of outstanding achievement, this brave old man has chosen of his own free will to be insulted and smeared and to risk who knows what possibilities of physical violence. Heroic. DS

Carter Says Book's Critics Should See Territories - Associated Press Abstract: Carter, 82, spoke at Emory University, where he is a professor. More than 600 Emory students and staff members attended his lecture on the book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." The book has been attacked as biased against Israel. He said he realized that the book's title, alluding to South Africa's former system of racial division, would cause criticism. He said that Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, icons of the freedom struggle in South Africa, have seen the conditions of the occupied land and have "used the same language" to describe the situation as he did in the book. "The title makes it clear the book is about conditions and events in the Palestinian territories and not in Israel and the text makes it clear the forced segregation and domination of Arabs by Israelis is not based on race," Carter said. Instead, he said the conditions stem from the desire of some Israelis to acquire choice land -- hilltop properties, farmland and sites controlling water access -- in the occupied territories. He invited his audience, some of whom protested against his book this week, to visit the occupied areas to see for themselves. READ IT ALL